A STUDY OF SMALL-SCALE RENEWABLE ENERGY INTEGRATION ON LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK

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Fogarty, Brendan

Abstract

In an active beach community on Long Island, New York, a local government facility site has installed multiple renewable energy projects, including 128.8 kW of solar and wind generation capacity alone. The administration building for the Department of Conservation and Waterways is located in the middle of this “Energy Park”, connected to the grid and solar arrays, and usually uses 15-25 kW throughout the year. Also in the park is a hydrogen and natural gas fueling station which can electrolyze water and compress the hydrogen at around 40 kW, connected to both the grid and 100 kW wind turbine. Energy usage, generation, and cost for the site were modeled using site data to determine how effective the system was working and where it needed improvements. It was found that solar generation meets the administration building load about 25% of all hours, and net cost for the system was around $16,000. Pooling all generation and load under Long Island Power Authority rate 281 would reduce annual expenditures to around $7,300, saving 54% of annual costs. Combined, wind and solar meet load 48% of the time with enough excess generation to run the electrolyzer enough to provide a fuel cell vehicle fleet with 2 kg hydrogen daily, enough to drive 160 km per day. Finally, the Energy Park may be close to grid independence, were it to combine its hydrogen storage system with a stationary fuel cell, since both monthly energy generation and load of the building and fueling stations total approximately 20MWh.